User blog:JackelopeKing/Movement in RPGs
or: Do You Really Care How Many Inches it is to Marrakesh? A quarter of an inch. That's why two adults were throwing boxes at one another. But in all fairness, it was a really important quarter of an inch. We were gathered around the table playing a game of Warhammer 40,000. I was testing out a new Space Marines army list, allied with my friend's new Imperial Guard army, and we were battling the forces of Chaos and the Orks. And since we hadn't made the proper offerings to the dice gods, we were doing terrible. I mean, I had a unit of guys who were ultra-killy, and they got wrecked by some middling chumps because of some awful dice-rolling. We were well on our way to getting completely humiliated when a charge on my ally was contested. On first measurement, the enemy's charge was a quarter of an inch short. On a second measurement, after a model or two might or might not have been nudged by accident, they were just barely in range. If this charge was successful, it was game over for us. So the debate over whether or not this charge should be allowed was... heated. Harsh words were exchanged. Defenestration was threatened (and since we were on the sixth floor of an apartment building, this was a legitimate threat). And then someone threw a box of tissues. Thank God everyone kept their wits about them and nothing terrible happened. There were $400 armies on the table. There were almost-full bottles of Yuengling on the table. All over a quarter of an inch. A quarter of an inch that really, really mattered for this game. Indeed, in Warhammer 40,000 and many other tabletop wargames, such tiny increments of distance often become critical, and tracking and estimating those ranges is a key skill. It's Hip to be Square Since the first RPGs were derived from wargames, it should be no wonder that the handling of distances as a precise measurement has been with us since the hobby's inception. My 4e PHB defines ranges by how many squares you can be away from an opponent to use a weapon or power. My 3e and 3.5e PHB told us that measure in 5-foot increments instead. Compared to a tabletop wargame, this is quite a bit easier. Counting squares is much easier than breaking out a measuring tape for every action, and leaves less room for “accidentally” nudging someone into range for a charge. But doesn't it drive you nuts that apparently the laws of motion in D&D universes break down for distances under 5 feet? You can't move a single foot at a time: it's five feet or nothing! A baby's first step must be a five-foot step! And don't even get me started on square fireballs (or square horses)! What we've done with this sort of system is to trade some precision (I can move my Marines at a 60 degree angle exactly 6”, or just 5” if I need to stop short of some dangerous terrain) for ease of play (moving my Rogue 6 squares is just a matter of counting to six). We allow ourselves to concede that for the purposes of D&D, distances of less than 5 feet are not mechanically significant. If a baby's first step isn't 5 feet, that's fine: it's not mechanically significant movement (ie, the baby probably won't get a move of 6 squares on the day of his first step, if combat just so happens to break out in the nursery). Baby's first step might be significant for the story or character development, but if a fight breaks out, it really doesn't matter. We've abstracted movement and decided that only movement at certain intervals matters. We do this in other ways too. If someone misses an attack, I might describe it as "side-stepping" a swing of a sword. My character doesn't move from his square, but he's also not bolted to the ground once in that square. He can move around his square and the game system doesn't care. It might be more dramatic and characteristic of a real fight if I could describe moving from that square as part of an action in which I don't take a move, but them's the breaks. If I move beyond that square, then there's mechanical consequences: I might move into or out of range for someone else's powers, or I might be able to get into melee with an opponent, or I might get closer to or farther from that MacGuffin that my party so desperately needs. But let's do a little thought-experiment. Let's say I use my ability to move six squares to move two squares down, one square right, two squares up, and one square left. For those without a grid handy, I just moved my character in a little circle. The mechanical implications of this, beyond spending my move to do this, are absolutely zero. I am in exactly the position where I started: I'll be in range for all the attacks this turn that I was last turn. In fact, if my movement takes me past an enemy, I'll be penalized for my action by suffering an opportunity attack (or attack of opportunity in 3e parlance). So if I want to keep attacking the same enemy who I was in melee with, the game encourages me to plant my feet, skip my move, and just keep on hacking away. Even if I'd really like to spice things up by keeping it dynamic by describing myself ducking and weaving around a foe as we circle so I can get inside his reach before plunging my dagger into his exposed side, I'm limited to tumbling around inside a five-foot square. Another thing to note: in absolutely none of these scenarios does the difference of an inch matter. The only increment that matters is 5 feet. Yay abstraction! She Moves in Mysterious Ways So let's break down what the possible mechanical implications are for movement: # Moving into range so that an action may be performed (whether by the character who moves or others in the encounter). # Moving out of range so that an action may not be performed (whether by the character who moves or others in the encounter). # Movement itself triggers actions from a character or the environment. # Move closer towards or further from any of the above. As far as the rules of the game are concerned, the only time it matters whether or not a character moves is if that movement satisfies one of the above four possibilities. The game still allows mechanically irrelevant actions (I could spend my move running in circles, or more accurately triangles or rectangles) which don't satisfy any above possibilities, while at the same time it makes it very difficult to create dynamic battles. In D&D, for instance, rather than circling one another, two characters locked in melee combat will be, well, locked-in. Circling will open both parties up to opportunity attacks. Of the above possibilities, the first three are of immediate mechanical significance. Because I moved my character to square (X,Y), I can target this enemy in exchange for being in range for those enemies. And because I moved my character, I risk an opportunity attack from ithat/i enemy on my way over. These are immediate consequences. The last point is not of immediate consequence, but can provide tactical options. For instance, if my character (armed only with a melee weapon) starts 200 feet (40 squares) away from an enemy using a weapon that has a range of 40 squares, barring intervening cover, my movement will not immediately change anything mechanically about the encounter (everyone who was in range at the start of the encounter will still be in range at the end of the round), but it will mean that I'll be able to use my melee weapon sooner rather than later. In more complex encounters, it's possible to maneuver in such a way that the enemy can't close with you without getting into range for a nasty attack or a charge, and dancing around opportunity attacks or similar penalties for moving becomes almost like a chess game. Some groups love this. Some groups hate it. Some GMs will hop up on a digital soap box and decry how horrible the game has become now that everyone counts squares and refuses to draw opportunity attacks. But let's do another thought-experiment. What happens when you take away the battle map? Dropping Off the Grid Without a battle map to count squares on, the precision of the above measurements vanishes. Players and the GM have to rely upon their descriptions of the shared imaginary space to be able to keep order in a battle. For small fights, say involving one enemy and the group, you don't really need much of a battle map. It might be more of a pain to prepare one or set one up than it is to just run the encounter without one. When playing like this, the GM and players tend towards a different approach, describing their locations as “over this side” or “near that guy” or “back next to Bob's character”. Distances become irrelevant, and all that matters is position. Problems certainly arise when a player wants to attack, only to find out that the target which she thought she was in melee with actually charged Bob's character last round. A discrepancy in the shared imaginary space can bring quite a few headaches for players and GMs alike. But by and large, it works. It could use a little more formality to help maintain the shared imaginary space, but it's an impromptu system we've all fallen back on at one time or another. Distances, under such a system, are relative. Position becomes what matters. We could, in theory, just describe everything in terms of where different combatants stand, so you could be “next to Bob” or “X feet from Bob”. But using “feet” is a problem here (and using “meters” would also be a problem, you internationals out there). Without any modifications, the game is still quite playable, but only when you have a single or very few points of reference. Tracking how many feet Bob is from Joe after Joe moved at a diagonal away from the wall... well, that's where we start to get a mess. Is there a way to solve this? (Yes, of course there is. That's why this article isn't done yet!) Danger Zone The solution to this dilemma actually came to me during a game of Arkham Horror. In that game, characters move between various landmarks and areas in the town of Arkham to fight nightmarish entities and stop this or that unnameable horror from beyond human comprehension from awakening and ending the world. And character movement is based on how many areas they can move between. Faster characters can run from one side of town to the other in one turn, while slower ones (or when there are monsters wandering in a central neighborhood blocking traffic) might take longer. And then it occurred to me: if it was good enough for a board game, why not for an RPG? Some of you will stop reading right there, quote that, and tell me how completely different board games and RPGs are, citing the vast history, the limitations of board games, the sweeping goals of RPGs, and you'd be completely right. But the question remains: can we use a system like this for tracking distances and movement in a board game? I think we can. Let's start with the d20 System, since that's probably the one that most of us here are familiar with. Normal movement speed is 30 feet, give or take a few feet for the plodding little short races. With a single move action, a character can move about 30 feet. They can charge twice that, about 60 feet. Now let's take a moment to remind ourselves of what movement means, mechanically, in an RPG: # Moving into range so that an action may be performed (whether by the character who moves or others in the encounter). # Moving out of range so that an action may not be performed (whether by the character who moves or others in the encounter). # Movement itself triggers actions from a character or the environment. # Move closer towards or further from any of the above. So if we were to divide the battlefield into zones, and we wanted to allow characters mechanically significant movement, they'd need to be able to cross from one zone to another every time they moved (for numbers 1, 2, and 4). While the exact dimensions of a zone are irrelevant, we can generally say, for the purpose of giving everyone some guidance in understanding how big of an area we're dealing with, that a zone is very roughly 20-30 feet in radius. By defining these zones in advance, we can very quickly describe a character's location based on which zone the character is in. Let's make is simple: our battlefield is a basketball court. You can be down at one end of the court under one basket, at half-court, and back under the other team's basket. In order to get from one end of the court to the other end, you have to go through half-court. But that's a big place. Not everyone in the same zone will be bumping elbows. Even within the “zone” of “under the basket”, you have the three-point arc, you have the paint, you have shots from inside the arc but outside the paint. And you can definitely have different match-ups in that zone, with different people close together, and others across the court from one another, at the baseline. In an RPG, if you're right up close and personal with an enemy, you're probably involved in a melee. And let's face it: melee range is very, very important for a lot of characters in an RPG. So let's further clarify location by also describing who's near one another in a zone, with a catch-all term like “engaged” or “in melee” or “adjacent”. I Can See For Miles So we've vastly simplified the problems of tracking characters across different zones. But what does this mean for ranges? Haven't we lost a lot of granularity? Actually, it opens up a lot of opportunities for how we can track ranges. All of our ranges will be based upon which zone the attacker and the target are in. Obviously, for melee-ranged attacks, as we described above, you have to engage in melee with someone in your zone. If you want to swing a sword at someone, you need to get up close and personal. So we'll define melee-ranged as attacks you can use once you've spent a Move to Engage with a target. Let's take the next step. There are plenty of attacks that you can use from some distance, but would have difficulty using if your target was too far away. Thrown weapons, small arms like pistols and those sorts of attacks are clearly ranged attacks, but fairly close-ranged. Actually, “close-ranged” sounds like a pretty good descriptor for attacks that you can make on targets within your zone, but who you aren't necessarily Engaged in melee with. And then a step further than that, since we already have close-ranged attacks, you can use a long-ranged attack to make attacks on targets in zones adjacent to your own. But, you might be asking, what if you're on the edge of one zone and your opponent is on the edge of his? Remember that part of the idea behind zones is that they allow for movement within them to be dynamic, with positions constantly shifting within their boundaries. So if you really do want to get close enough to use a certain attack, you need to spend a Move to do so to cross over into the adjacent zone. You're never “on the edge” of a zone, because for your character, there are no zones. They're just a handy short-hand for us players to be able to determine where characters are in relation to one another. Another point you might be considering is that in all fairness, while it's difficult to use something like a handgun at longer ranges, the bullet a handgun fires isn't just going to magically stop at a zone's boundaries. You can take a more difficult shot and try to fire across zones. And long-ranged weapons can definitely hit a target from more than 60 feet away, especially in the hands of a skilled marksman. So we need a way to account for how difficult a shot is. And we do sort of have a nice way to handle that, since the d20 System has a nice set of modifiers for skill checks already, so let's use the same concept for difficulty. This will let us recreate the notion of the range increment from the classic d20 System in a neater package. So you can use a close-ranged weapon to fire into an adjacent Zone, but the difficulty will increase. You could also use a long-ranged weapon to fire from a few zones away, but the difficulty will go way up. I've long been a big fan of using a unified scale for modifiers, if only because it allows a GM to be relatively consistent and repeating the same addition and subtraction tends to make things easier on the players. So if a shot becomes one rank more difficult, take a -2 penalty. If it becomes two ranks more difficult, -5. And at three or more ranks, a big -10 penalty. This system is nice because it also allows for us to account for other penalties under the same umbrella. Firing into a melee will increase the difficulty by one rank, as will firing at a character with cover. We can wrap all of these up in a neat little package with this system. The Times They Are A'Changin' This new system will be forming the bedrock of movement, ranges and combat in id20 Advanced: Second Phase/i. Consider this a little sneak-peek at what's to come, and how I go about analyzing a problem in game-design and then addressing it with new rules. JackelopeKing (talk) 19:00, November 11, 2010 (UTC) Category:Blog posts